I'm not sure when we all became so concerned with literally everything going on in our lives and how it compared to others. I guess even when I was five I wanted to know why the other little girl in kindergarten had a prettier dress on than I did; maybe we were born with this natural insecurity. Maybe we were taught to be unsure of ourselves. All I know is I'm totally and completely over it.
I don't care if you're twenty-five years old and crashing in your mom's guest bedroom because things didn't work out with your girlfriend. You could be sixteen, pregnant, and absolutely freaking out. Maybe graduation is coming up and you still have no idea what you want to do with your life. I mean, really, you could have just gotten out of jail because you did something so completely stupid and not like you. You can be lost. You can be brokenhearted. You can be deemed a failure by others. But for the love of all good things in this world, stop feeling sorry for yourself.
The problem with throwing yourself a pity party is that no one wants an invite. When you are at your worst, it is without a doubt, not a good feeling, but no one successful got where they are without failure and they also didn't become successful by moping around. Whatever situation you find yourself in, learn from it. Take the good with the bad and move on. You can be mad or sad or frustrated that you got yourself into this mess, but in order to get yourself out, it is vital that you just accept it for what it is and move forward.
I don't know if it is an American thing, generation thing, or just human nature. I do know that when I scroll down my Facebook or Twitter feed, I read countless posts from people declaring that the world is just working against them. They feel like they can't catch a break, so giving up seems like the only logical solution (side note: it isn't). Now let me be clear, I'm not saying we all just need to suck it up nor am I giving you the whole, "Well, some people have it worse than you do" spiel. What I'm saying is after you're done crying, wipe your tears, and get on with your day.
It's perfectly healthy and totally necessary to release your emotions. Go ahead, talk about your hardships and struggles, but don't talk about only that. If you think you're the only person in this world who has failed, my, oh my, do you need to just get over yourself. Everyone has experienced hurt, desperation, failure, and so forth. Stop thinking your life is significantly worse and that you're just destined to be a nobody. The problem is we are always comparing our behind the scenes version of ourselves to somebody else's finished product. That girl on Instagram may appear to be living a perfect life based on her finely filtered photos but I would be willing to bet that there's more to her than what she publishes on social media. I mean, don't we all have that one friend who we always stick up for because nobody else has any idea what they're going through? Or can you think back to a time when someone told you a story about themselves and you just shook your head in disbelief, not able to imagine they could endure such a thing? Everyone has a battle. Everyone.
The only difference between you and those other people that you think are doing so much better than you is that they kept pushing on. When times got tough, they persevered. You can call me insensitive. You can say I don't understand. But so long as you're focused on proving me wrong and how your life really is just awful, you're not making changes. When we accept defeat, we only cheat ourselves. I think the saying goes, "When you've hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up." So, I challenge you to do just that. Go up. Don't stay at the bottom feeling sorry for yourself while everyone else climbs out.
Everyone else isn't actually doing better than you. They're just still doing something, anything.
"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." - J.K. Rowling (Author, rock bottom survivor, not a moper.)
